HISD may delay teacher evaluations based on student scores

HISD teacher evaluations may be delayedGrier says some test scores used in the process won't be ready in time

ERICKA MELLON, HOUSTON CHRONICLE

Published 5:30 am, Thursday, July 28, 2011

HISD Superintendent Terry Grier proposed Thursday that the district delay its nationally watched plan to evaluate teachers based on their students' performance next year because some test score data won't be ready.

For months, Grier and the Houston Independent School District board had refused to slow down the rollout of the new evaluation system despite pleas from the teachers' union and warnings that new state tests could complicate the process.

Grier, reversing course Thursday in a memo to staff, said he will ask the board to postpone until 2012-13 the use of test scores in grading teachers. He said certain results from the new exams aren't expected to be available to calculate some teachers' ratings in the upcoming school year.

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But other changes to the evaluation process, including more observations of teachers and more regular feedback from principals, will remain in place, with the test scores coming on board the next year.

"We want to be responsive to feedback we've heard this summer from teachers about taking on these challenges — as well as a new appraisal and design system - in a single school year," Grier said in the memo, not mentioning that teachers had expressed similar concerns last spring.

The school board, on a 7-2 vote, gave final approval to the new evaluation system in May, drawing praise from U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan for its focus on students' academic progress.

Before the vote, leaders of the Houston Federation of Teachers had asked Grier and the board to test the evaluation through a pilot program before using it in all schools. Teachers can be promoted or fired based on the results.

"I think we've probably mentioned the timeline to them about a dozen times in the past," said union vice president Andy Dewey.

The union, as HFT president Gayle Fallon had threatened, filed a complaint with HISD in June challenging the legality of the entire evaluation, arguing that the district didn't use the required input from teachers and parents in designing the appraisal.

Officials with HISD and its consultant, The New Teacher Project, countered that the district included more than 2,600 teachers as well as administrators, parents and community members in the process.

The complaint will go before a hearing officer, who will make a recommendation to the school board. The decision can be appealed to the state education commissioner.

'We want to be fair'

State lawmakers passed a bill in 2009 to change the testing program for all grade levels, but details of the exams didn't come until later.

Julie Baker, HISD's chief of special projects, did not provide a date when asked when district officials learned about the timing problems its contracted statisticians would face in analyzing the test data.

"We know there are still unknowns around STAAR," Baker said of the new testing program, called the State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness. "We want to be fair to our teachers."

Roughly half of a teacher's rating was supposed to be based on student performance, including their students' annual progress on state exams. Teachers of electives such as art and music would be rated on other measures, which Baker said are still being determined.

Classroom observations

The new evaluation system requires principals to observe teachers in the classroom at least four times a year, taking note of their teaching strategies, ability to engage students and other factors. The old process, used by most Texas districts, requires only one observation, and many veteran teachers are exempt from annual reviews.

HISD board president Paula Harris, who, like most of the trustees opposed a pilot of the evaluation, said she can support giving teachers a "bye" on the performance data in the upcoming year because of the difficulty of the new state exams.

"I'm hoping it's going to increase morale and make people see we're trying to be fair and still expecting great things," Harris said.

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